How we uncovered pollution in the biomass industry

This year, Land and Climate Review’s first investigative series has documented more than 11,000 breaches of environmental law at North American wood pellet mills. 

Alasdair MacEwen speaks to Camille Corcoran, whose recent reporting was published with The Times in the UK, and Bertie Harrison-Broninski, who normally co-hosts with Alasdair, but here discusses Land and Climate Review’s Canadian investigations, which were featured on BBC Newsnight. 

They discuss the process of uncovering environmental violations at wood pellet mills owned by Drax Group, which operates the UK’s largest power station, and how residents in Mississippi and British Columbia say they have been affected by the pollution from the mills. 

Audio engineering by Vasko Kostovski and Podcast House. 

Read the investigations: 

• ‘Drax-owned facilities broke environmental rules more than 11,000 times in the US’, Land and Climate Review, November 2024
• ‘The Dirty Business of Clean Energy: The U.K. Power Company Polluting Small Towns Across the U.S.’, The Intercept, September 2024
• ‘Drax’s pellet mills violated environmental law 189 times in Canada’, Land and Climate Review, May 2024
• ‘Drax faces penalty after Canadian biomass plant fails to submit pollution report’, The Independent, October 2023

Related episodes: 

• Are Canada’s sustainable forestry claims accurate? - with Richard Robertson from Stand.Earth
• Does bioenergy increase CO2 emissions more than burning coal? - with John Sterman from MIT
• What is BECCS and what does it mean for climate policy? - with Daniel Quiggin from Chatham House

Click here for our website to read all our most recent Land and Climate Review features and pieces.